(Kranky)

www.kranky.net

If you've had misgivings about jumping on the Deerhunter admiration bandwagon due to the extreme hype the band parlays or general annoyance with frontman Bradford Cox's hyper-personal blogging, right about now is the perfect time to forgive and forget. Deerhunter's excellent new album, Microcastle, is the perfect entrance for the uninitiated, and one of the better albums to see the light of day as the year draws to an end.

A sultry My Bloody Valentine haze hangs over the dozen songs that make up the record, pushing Deerhunter's Brit-pop, post-punk, and bliss-pop-influenced songwriting into lushly ambient territory. The most basic rock and pop songwriting idea is given an experimental once-over, wonderfully tainting each song with a mysterious muddle. For example, the title track begins with Cox's tremolo-effected vocals stretching out over lazily strummed guitar chords. All of a sudden, a staccato snare beat interrupts and the song picks up steam, launching into driving fuzz, Cox's ghostly vocalizing anchoring the back-beat. "Activa" would fit right at home on a Bjork album, as chords are hesitantly picked out under the repeated refrain, "I try..." And just when you begin to sink into a heavy-lidded doze, "Nothing Ever Happened" kicks you in the ass with an energetic guitar and drum riff that takes various twists and turns over the song's six minutes.

Yes, Deerhunter is as good as the prescient blogging community and new-music-obsessed youth say they are. Resistance is futile, so turn it on, turn it up, and, at least for 40 minutes or so, tune the rest of the world out.

Standout Tracks: "Little Kids", "Microcastle" JONAH FLICKER